Discourse analysis session 9_30_11_2021_cooperative principles.pdf
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This document discusses Grice's cooperative principles and conversational implicatures. It explains the four maxims of quantity, quality, relation, and manner. Examples are provided to illustrate how conversational implicatures can arise from both observing and flouting the maxims. The document also discusses how implicatures allow interlocutors to communicate efficiently and how context and shared background knowledge are important for interpretation.
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Discourse analysis session 9_30_11_2021_cooperative principles.pdf
- 1. Department of English Language and Literature Major: English Language and Literature Discourse Analysis Sessions 9 The cooperative principles Dr. Badriya Al Mamari Academic year 2021/2022
- 2. •In conversation analysis, the cooperative principle is the assumption that participants in a conversation normally attempt to be informative, truthful, relevant, and clear. •This idea was introduced by philosopher H. Paul Grice in his 1975 article "Logic and Conversation
- 3. Grice conversational maxims •Grice expanded his cooperative principle with the four following conversational maxims, which he believed anyone wishing to engage in meaningful, cogent conversation must follow: •Quantity: Say no less than the conversation requires. Say no more than the conversation requires. •Quality: Don't say what you believe to be false. Don't say things for which you lack evidence. •Manner: Don't be obscure. Don't be ambiguous. Be brief. Be orderly. •Relevance: Be relevant.
- 5. Activity 1 The following text is real data taken from the British National Corpus. It is part of a casual conversation between Lisa, a 30 year-old housewife from the South Midlands, and Melvin, a 29-year- old panel beater. The conversation suggests that the speakers share a certain amount of cultural background knowledge and interpersonal knowledge. See the word document ( Activity1)
- 6. • Because Melvin and Louise seem to share such a lot of cultural background knowledge and interpersonal knowledge, we can assume that they know each other and each other’s worlds fairly well, and because of their shared knowledge, they can flout the maxims freely, in the certainty that they will each be able to infer the other’s implied meaning.
- 7. Flouting the maxim of quantity Lisa says that Melvin’s mother and father arrived at Louise’s house or flat at quarter past eight, she adds, ‘She was in bed. She normally goes to bed about half past seven. They said that’s the earliest they could get there’ (lines 4–5), which implies that it was not actually ‘the earliest they could get there’, and she feels that this was inconsiderate of them as they knew that she had to go to bed early and they wittingly disturbed her sleep.
- 8. • Melvin flouts the maxim of quantity when he says minimally, ‘They should have gone as soon as they got out of work’ (line 18).
- 9. Flouting the maxim of relation • They said that’s the earliest they could get there. I said that’s a load of rubbish I said, cos they have fish and chips on a Friday night’ (lines 6–7). • Fish and chips does not seem immediately relevant to their getting there early, yet Melvin infers it.
- 10. Flouting of the maxim of quality • This starts with a metaphor that is so well established that it has become a fixed expression and is no longer anything to do with pains or arses. • She’s a right pain in the arse sometimes, me mum. That’s why they don’t go anywhere’ (lines 13–15).
- 11. • The second part is a hyperbole; it is an exaggeration which his very next utterance would seem to contradict if we did not know that he was flouting the maxim of quality: ‘that’s why they don’t come out and visit his brother very often’ (lines 15–16).
- 12. • A violation of the cooperative maxims is much harder to detect. It could be that Louise does not in reality go to bed at 7.30 normally, but that she goes at 9.30, and that Lisa is therefore lying, violating the maxim of quality. • One would have to know the speakers and their context very well to know if they were trying to deceive each other and intentionally generate a misleading implicature.
- 13. Relevance theory • Relevance theory holds true for this little passage: • Lisa and Melvin communicate successfully, interpreting the connections between utterances as meaningful, making inferences drawing on their own background knowledge of Louise, the parents, birthdays, fish and chips, and so on and selecting the relevant features of context.
- 14. Conversational implicatures • According to Grice, utterance interpretation is not a matter of decoding messages, but rather involves (1) taking the meaning of the sentences together with contextual information, (2) using inference rules (3) working out what the speaker means on the basis of the assumption that the utterance conforms to the maxims. The main advantage of this approach from Grice’s point of view is that it provides a pragmatic explanation for a wide range of phenomena, especially for Conversational implicautres
- 15. Conversational implicatures • Conversational Implicature are the assumptions suggested by the speaker and inferred by the hearer in an exchange situation. These assumptions are not encoded in the words said but are generated by the interlocuters’ cooperation to achieve rational communication. conversational implicautre is a kind of extra meaning that is not literally contained in the utterance.
- 17. • According to Grice, conversational implicatures can arise from either strictly and directly observing or deliberately and openly flouting the maxims, that is, speakers can produce implicatures in two ways: observance and non- observance of the maxims.
- 18. Example 1: Husband: Where are the car keys? Wife: They’re on the table in the hall. • The wife has answered clearly (manner) and truthfully (Quality), has given just the right amount of information (Quantity) and has directly addressed her husband’s goal in asking the question (Relation). She ahs said precisely what she meant, no more and no less.
- 19. Example (2) “He is a tiger” • This sentence is literally false, openly against the maxim of quality, for no human is a tiger. But the hearer still assumes that the speaker is being cooperative and then infers that he is trying to say something distinct from the literal meaning. He can then work out that probably the speaker meant to say that “he has some characteristics of a tiger”.
- 20. Example 3: “Tom has wooden ears” • is obviously false most natural contexts and the speaker in uttering it flouts the first maxim of quality.
- 21. The flouting of cooperative principles • It is important to note that it is speakers who communicate meaning via implicatures and it is listeners who recognize those communicated meanings via inference. The inferences selected are those which will preserve the assumption of cooperation. But in fact, the speakers often flout the cooperative principles and are still thought to be cooperative. What they convey is the conversational implicatures.
- 22. The flouting of the maxim of quality • Ex. (4) Tom does not appreciate classical music so we should not invite him to the concert. • Ex. When we moved here, the room is 5x4, now it is 3x4.
- 23. The flouting of maxim of quantity • Ex. (5) A: Where does C live? • B: Somewhere in the South of France. • Ex. Dear Sir, • Mr. X’s command of English is excellent and his attendance at tutorials has been regular, yours, etc.
- 24. The flouting of the maxim of relation: • Ex. (6) A: I’m out of petrol. • B: There is a garage round the corner. • Ex. A. Where’s Bill? • B. There’s a yellow VW outside Sue’s house. • Ex. A. What time is it? • B. The mail has already come. • Ex. A. The hostess is an awful bore, don’t you think? • B. The roses are lovely, aren’t they?
- 25. The flouting of the maxim of manner • Ex. (7) A: Shall we get something for the kids? • B: But I veto I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M. • Ex. Miss X produced a series of sounds that corresponded closely with the score of “Home, Sweet Home”.
- 26. Tautology: it is uninformative by virtue of its semantic content • Ex. (8) If he comes, he comes. • (9) Girls are girls. • (10) War is war.
- 27. References: • Grice, H. Paul. "Logic and Conversation." Syntax and Semantics, 1975. Reprinted in "Studies in theWay of Words." Harvard University Press, 1989 • Cutting, J. (2005). Pragmatics and discourse: A resource book for students. Routledge.